Re: extended ascii symbols

[John Pearson <john@huiac.apana.org.au>]

On Thu, Nov 25, 1999 at 02:02:47PM -0500, David Blackman wrote
> For some of the wierd symbols, like card suits and lines and shapes, I
> need to print ths to start it: 
> "\033[11m"
> 
> and thsi to stop it (so that keys display properly)
> "\033[10m"
> 
> Is there a better way?
> 

If you use magicfilter, you can alter the line that governs
'raw' printing to add codes sent before and after jobs; 
if you want to turn this on for entire jobs, you can set
up a second printer entry that uses a different magicfilter
file and then pipes the resulting stuff to your original printer;
e.g.,

==/etc/printcap==
lp|epson9|Some Epson Printer:\
        :lp=/dev/lp0:sd=/var/spool/lpd/epson9:\
        :sf:sh:pw#80:pl#72:px#1440:mx#0:\
        :if=/etc/magicfilter/epson9-filter:\
        :af=/var/log/lp-acct:lf=/var/log/lp-errs:

fancy|alternatetextset|bogus:\
	:lp=|lpr -Plp:sd=/var/spool/lpd/fancy:\
        :sf:sh:pw#80:pl#72:px#1440:mx#0:\
        :if=/etc/magicfilter/myfilter:\
        :af=/var/log/lp-acct:lf=/var/log/lp-errs:

and have the last line of myfilter something like:
default                 cat     \e[11m  \e[10m

You should then be able to print textfiles where you want the
suit symbols, smiley faces, et al. to "fancy" with e.g. lpr -Pfancy

By using a pipe for the device for the fancy printer rather than
the actual device name (which is already associated with another
printcap entry) we get a warm fuzzy feeling that lpd won't try to 
send two jobs to the same device simultaneously.

Disclaimer:  I haven't tried this myself, but it looks about right 
to me :-)


John P.
-- 
huiac@camtech.net.au
john@huiac.apana.org.au
"Oh - I - you know - my job is to fear everything." - Bill Gates in Denmark